A swampy blog of uncertainty, mud and mirth.
Weaved together with lyrical reeds of true stories and imagined happenings.
What is, may not. What's not, may be.
Don't fall in.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

Obscure challengesSometimes, a fervour comes upon me to learn something. Unfortunately, my learning sprees rarely distinguish between useful and unuseful knowledge. Suddenly I stay up late reading, browsing, searching, scribbling etc. till finally I leave it there. Quite often it is a language but can really be anything, nobel prize winners, chemistry, a musicians work, a philosophy.

Recently, I read Nobel Prize for Literature winners (triggered by Who wants to be a Millionaire), solipsism and Descartes (as a result of my interest in existentialism), Arabic (triggered by getting a book on Islam), zoological classifications (as a result of a visit to the various museums) etc.

Last night's project was learning Biblical Hebrew, triggered by my reading of the Bible, and also the fact that a theology-studying workmate was a bit unsure whether he should be expending that effort. I now know the whole hebrew alephbet (interestingly, the Greek, Arabic, Latin and Hebrew alphabets come from a similar root). I can read the very first sentence in Genesis and even understand the grammar).

Damn, just writing that triggered me to re-learn the Greek alphabet. Oh and now the Arabic... Maybe that is the problem with a language passion, it is never-ending.